October 7th: The Anniversary of the US and NATO Military Invasion of Afghanistan
by Left Radical of Afghanistan
October 7, 2001, marks the beginning of the bloody military invasion of Afghanistan by the United States and its NATO allies under the pretext of a “war on terrorism”. This date symbolizes the start of two decades of occupation, devastation, massacre, and plunder of a nation that had previously, during the Cold War and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, already fallen victim to the strategic goals and interests of the US and the West through the creation, funding, and arming of fundamentalist Islamic parties and Al-Qaeda. The invasion and occupation of Afghanistan by the USA and its allies was not a “counter-terrorism operation”, but a manifestation of the bloodthirsty, hegemonic, and exploitative nature of modern-day imperialism.
The United States invaded Afghanistan with false claims of fighting terrorism, establishing democracy, and restoring women’s rights. However, after twenty years of occupation and the expenditure of trillions of dollars, it not only failed to achieve any of these goals but made the situation considerably worse. Today, not only has terrorism not been eradicated, but the number and variety of active terrorist groups in Afghanistan has increased. At the end of the occupation in 2021, power was handed over to a group that the West and the United Nations themselves designate as terrorist and misogynistic.
The USA and NATO occupiers, through the bombing of cities and villages, the use of advanced weapons including the “Mother of All Bombs” (GBU-43/B MOAB), and conducting “night raids”, massacred hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians. The USA and its allies, while claiming to defend human rights, committed war crimes and egregious human rights violations during their twenty-year occupation of Afghanistan.
Immediately after the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, the USA handed over power to corrupt forces and warlords. These fundamentalist Islamic warlords had previously been used as proxy forces by the US and its allies against the Soviet Union in the 1980s. Individuals such as Marshal Fahim, Marshal Dostum, Sayyaf, Ismail Khan, Abdullah, Qanuni, Karim Khalili, Mohaqiq, and others, who were accused of war crimes and widespread human rights violations, were once again installed in positions of power. The puppet governments of Hamid Karzai and Ashraf Ghani were primarily composed of these Taliban-like mindset, corrupt, human-rights-violating forces accused of war crimes.
The claim of defending women’s rights was a propaganda cover for the USA and its allies to justify the occupation. During twenty years, women’s rights were limited to a small segment of society in major cities and under the dominion of that very corrupt warlord system, the majority of Afghan women lived in poverty and deprivation. Today, the catastrophe of the Taliban’s return and the systematic erasure of women’s rights is a direct result of the policies of the US and NATO, which not only failed to dismantle the semi-feudal and patriarchal structures but, by strengthening fundamentalists and misogynistic forces, created the material conditions for this regression.
Since 2021, the international community, led by the very same occupying powers, have been paying the Taliban tens of millions of dollars per week under the title of “humanitarian aid”. This action is not to help the deprived people of Afghanistan, but to maintain a minimal level of stability for their own geopolitical interests and to prevent the country’s complete fall to forces opposed to the US and Western interests. This policy is a continuation of the same colonial approach that views the people of Afghanistan as a tool for advancing its own goals.
The US imperialism has not learned from its disgraceful defeat in Afghanistan. While the wounds of the people have not yet healed, and the pain and suffering from the crimes of the USA and NATO during the twenty-year occupation have not been forgotten by the Afghan people, the warmongering administration of Donald Trump periodically hints at a military return to Afghanistan and the re-occupation of Bagram Airbase. However, it must be stated clearly that the world of today is not the world of twenty-five years ago. The United States is facing a relative decline in its global power, and its traditional allies also view such costly adventures with skepticism. In contrast, new powers have emerged in the region and the world that are not willing to witness a cost-free repetition of imperialist aggressions.
The people of Afghanistan, despite all the suffering and calamities they have endured, will never submit to foreign occupiers and their domestic agents. Any effort to re-occupy this country will be met with fierce resistance and a defeat far more severe and disgraceful than in the past. History will deliver its final judgment, and the crimes of the US imperialism and its NATO accomplices in Afghanistan will be forever recorded in the memory of nations.